Love and Logic
by Komaki Nakao
Summary: A one-shot I did for a contest on Ushi. Gill contemplates his feelings for Angela.


The warm summer air drifted in through the open window, fluttering the curtains on its way indoors. The usually tidy bedroom was in a state of disarray. A freshly wilted flower drooped over the edge of a dusty blue vase, the crusty brown petals dropping onto the desk below one by one. The young scholar's collection of books – usually neatly organized on the book shelf – were strung out across the room haphazardly. Charles Dickens would have hung his head in shame if he had seen the way _Great Expectations_ lay on the floor, tossed aside like an old rag. An old paperback, James Joyce novel hung half-open over the edge of the dresser, its old, time stained pages fluttering in the breeze. The bed was left unmade, and on the crumpled sheets sat the remains of a bad game of solitaire.

In his proper state of mind, Gill would have never let his room become this disorderly. But things being the way they were, he hardly noticed. He sat in his armchair, looking like the king of all the chaos around him, cradling one of Shakespeare's tragedies in his hands. It wasn't long, however, before that too was cast aside, left to fend for itself among the anarchy.

Gill buried his face in his bony hands. He rubbed his eyes and let out a low groan; he couldn't remember the last time he felt so exhausted. It had been at least a week since he was able to sleep through the night. During his waking hours, nothing held his attention for long. His mind constantly wandered away from the task at hand to somewhere else. Someplace his mind had never traveled before, a place Gill wished his mind would stay out of.

He was being completely irrational, and he knew it. But no matter what he did, his train of thought would eventually lead him back to the same place - Angela. Angela's soft brown hair. Angela's cute little smile. The way Angela would roll her eyes when he corrected her grammar or brushed some dirt off of her shoulder. The way she talked to the stray cat near the dock and pretended it was talking back to her. Angela.

"This is utterly ridiculous," he said, rising to his feet. He wandered over to his window and looked outside, the light breeze pushing his blond locks out of his eyes. Below him, Candace and Julius walked by, holding hands and whispering to each other quietly. Gill blushed violently, unable to keep himself from imagining himself in Julius' designer shoes, with Angela by his side, rubbing a callused thumb over the smooth skin of his hands as they walked together. "I'm a scholar; she's a rancher. I'm refined; about as sophisticated as a slice of bologna. I study philosophy and literature; she milks cows for a living. _Cows_! I know they say feelings like this aren't based on reason, but jeez!"

That is what bothered Gill the most, the lack of logic. Everything else he had ever done was based on logic and good, old-fashioned common sense. But this was love, and love couldn't – and shouldn't – be thought of as having a solid basis in reality. Unlike his books, his feelings for Angela weren't tangible. They weren't solid, real objects that could be put aside at any given moment. At the same time, they couldn't be ignored. They couldn't be tossed into the messy pile around him and forgotten. They would just dig their way out and come at him with full force.

At last, he reached a conclusion. A wonderful, brilliant thought struck his brain. "If love isn't based on logic," he said aloud, grinning with pride. "Then I can't use logic to reach a solution to my dilemma!" This realization only lead to another - perhaps even greater – puzzle for Gill to solve. If he couldn't use logic to get out of this predicament, what else was there?

"I have to tell her," Gill blurted out, answering his own question the second it popped into his mind. "I have to tell Angela that I'm in love with her. That's the only way. I can't go on living like this; even rejection would be better than wallowing around here for the rest of my life."

Gill nodded, yes, this was the best plan. He took a deep breath, inhaling as much bravado as he could, and left to seek out the farmer.


End file.
